From Tales of The Betrayed
by Johanna Night
Summary: They were all powerful. They were all betrayed. Silena Beauregard feared Kronos, but she trusted him all the same. Thalia Grace despised her father, but she still believed him without a solemn oath. Perseus Jackson cursed the fates, but he let them choose his end. Three is a powerful number. Three betrayed. Three neglected. Three who carry on to tell their stories.


She's like a batch of candles, placed precariously on a table.

Another Aphrodite girl, another useless being. Another pretty face crouched in the corner, another set of batting lashes and pouting lips. She wants change. She wants love. She wants people to love her.

There is only so much one girl can do.

Silena falls apart, piece by piece. It's miraculous no one hears her alone in the woods, swinging her poor excuse of a weapon and lashing out at everything and anything. There is nothing more she hates than being a Daughter of Aphrodite.

She's more than a barbie doll. Maybe in her mind she sees herself above the rest, above because she's not fawning over every boy that comes along. Above because she's beautiful and she knows it and doesn't have to flaunt. Above but still the same because they're family.

She's never had a real family and maybe she wants one. She convinces herself that this is what she needed, because these people care for her. These people love her (No, not really) and she needs them.

It's stereotypical. It's silly. She falls in love.

Perfect timing, in the middle of a war. Perfect for the enemy and deadly for her.

They lash upon the chance. Luke lashes upon the chance. 'If you spy for us-tell us what you know-more lives will be saved,' he promises. 'Charles Beckendorf's life will be saved.' That was the last straw. She agrees readily-anything for him.

She's almost confident that he and Percy will make it back safe and sound-that makes it all the more heartbreaking. Luke broke his promise- and in that one broken oath her world falls into shambles and torches into flame.

Kronos betrayed them. Kronos betrayed her, and she is lost, more lost than she's ever been before. She's angry-burning anger that swirls in a desperate, pleading inferno. She wants to be the one who personally cuts Kronos into the thousands of bits, into the thousands of bits that are probably Charlie scattered at the bottom of the ocean.

Her one dream is impossible so she tries her best to help. She learns healing-every white bandage is another life saved. Silena lies to the enemy once-they let her off because she's just another dumb girl. She's never been so glad for stereotypes.

There has got to be more she can do.

In the final battles she begs Percy to let her go back to camp. He agrees, and she runs-runs fast, faster than she's ever run before and she slips on Clarisse's armor. The Ares cabin wants to believe that their leader has let them fight. It makes them more gullible. She charges into battle.

The acid burns, burns more than anything she's ever felt, but she embraces the darkness because it means she will see Charlie. Even if she's going to the Pits she needs to see him. She lets herself fall back onto the ground.

Her life burns out, the fragile thread of the fates consumed in a matter of seconds. 'see Charlie,' she whispers-her last words.

The candle of Silena Beauregard goes dark.

Ω

Thalia has always wondered what it's like to love.

Her mother tells her it's a burning passion, a kindled fire that grows and grows until it consumes everything and anything. Her mother tells her it's dangerous and she can never fall into it. Your father was my love, she says, her words slurred from wine and that empty beer bottle shattered in the corner. He let me fall.

She believes her mother. The foolish, four year old girl believed her mother, but every time she stumbled from the doors of the nursury school seeing other sober mothers was like a piece of shattered glass to the heart. She remembers how her mother's eyes glazed. She hates her father.

Then she is on the ru. Luke is all she has, and then she really hates her father because godsdamnit, if there's one person who deserves a happy ending it's got to be her. She's another pawn, another tool. Luke tells her about Kronos. She refuses. Luke nods, but from then on he's distant.

Thalia doesn't know when it starts. Her life begins to fall apart. She''s turned itno a tree and then back to a human and by the gods if this is her reward for being a demigod then she's bolting as fast as she can. She's fighting in a war, then another, and she's coming out battered and bruised and maybe only a little alive.

It's not enough.

She still remembers the day Olympus was silent, the day Olympus fell silent under the influence of grief. She still remembers the way the rain pours, pours over the gray gravestone that marks the death of Perseus Jackson. She still remembers the look on his face, the cry that escapes his lips as his fingers clench white, _white_ on the armrest.

They drag her away, kicking and screaming and howling incomprehensible curses, because she still sees his eyes, those broken betrayed orbs screaming '_you promised_!' She still sees the bolt of lightning crash down on him, the way his horrified scream echoes before the plane spirals down, down, down.

Her own fear of heights escapes her. They hurtle through the air-her invincible; him relentlessly battered by bits and pieces of debris. A gust of wind blows her to a soft landing and she latches on, because no way in hell is she letting him go. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth-precious, more precious than garnets or rubies or diamonds.

"I love you, Thals," He says, and a blood dabbled smile traces its way across his features. Then the hand that clenches the collar of her shirt falls limp, and his eyelids fall shut for the final time.

Then she mourns in her own way, cutting all bonds with Zeus because he just had to go and blow it, did he? He just had to let his paranoia kill everyone Thalia has ever loved, and to _hades_ with him if he thinks Thalia will ever forgive him.

The hunters are an easy way out for her. She sees it, because no boys means no Zeus. But her father still visits her and offers her the chance to back out-offers her the chance to see her friends. The friends you killed, she wants to add.

She agrees.

Only if you quit the Hunters, he says, in that tone of his that says no arguing. Only if you quit the hunters. And she slaps him across the face, so hard he reels back. Her hand is stinging and she knows it hurts her more than him but it feels so good she does it again. And again.

Zeus sits there in shocked silence, then throws the nearest photo from the dresser to the wall. She lets out a strangled cry and picks it up, piecing together the shattered image as it portrays her life.

Zeus is gone.

Thalia Grace is, too, bloodied and bruised from a surprise attack. She can feel her aura flickering even as she caresses Percy's gravestone, lays her head on the cool gray gem. "Guess the gods betrayed us both," she whispers. Then fiery pain erupts across her and death scores it's tally across her beating heart.

Ω

Perseus Jackson knows his life is too good to be true.

It is the circle of life, he supposes, and as he falls into Tartarus he is cursing the gods, cursing every god he can think of because this shouldn't be him. And it might be selfish and insulting and just plain stupid, but then he curses Poseidon for even creating him. He doesn't want to be born.

Not into a hero's fate.

The monsters come and he and Annabeth are face to face, staring into each other's eyes. He doesn't know about her but he sees a little of everyone he's ever known in her, sees his mother in the curve of her lips. Sees Paul in the way her fingers clench, sees Thalia in the determined spark of her eyes.

Sees Travis and Connor and Luke in the hard set of her features, sees Nico in the defensive position her body curls up into. Sees her, just Annabeth, in the way she fights, fights like a whirlwind. Why is it them?

Maybe the gods just hate him. He's forbidden, after all, and there's definitely plenty of reason why they should despise him. He makes it out of Tartarus-alive, though he thinks a part of him dies that day.

He knows the plane ride was a bad idea.

Thalia convinces him, tells him that her father promised not to blast him. He clenches his fingers on the armrest and waits, and Thalia is doing the same, glancing nervously down at the air beneath them. The air thickens and thickens. He waits.

For what?

He's pretty sure he's waiting for the blast, but they all get up into the air safely. Thalia breathes a sigh of relief-and then lightning crackles down.

Agony. His body arches upward, electricity coursing through every cell. He's sure he can feel it in his soul, too, but it's over and he can't think and everything feels like it's being broken in half. Promise, he remembers faintly. Thalia swore on the Styx. She is not dead. Zeus told her a lie.

He is ashamed to admit that his next to last emotion is anger. He swears he will destroy Zeus the next time he can, because no matter how much everything hurts Thalia must be hurting worse.

He musters up a smile. "I love you, Thals," He says, and she nods, an I love you just hovering at her lips. His eyelids are so impossibly heavy-there is no pain. Sleep, his mind thinks, and everything burns bright-and then fades to black.

* * *

**A/N: I do not own PJO. Sorry for the long wait-midterms are infuriating. This can be taken as Perlia or cousin to cousin... interpretation is free to the reader's choosing. Thanks for reading! (Anyone confused as to how these three scenes are linked?)**

**-Johanna**


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